The Exorcism of Emily Rose

[Brenda Starrr]

I lived in a house in Mt. Pleasant for about 3 years. For the first year... things were fine. Odd things happened but nothing too.. Well... disturbing. There was a small room upstairs. We didn’t use it for that first year for anything. It sat empty except for a bed that no one could/would sleep in. We did try to get the kids to sleep in there, even tried using for a guest room. No one would stay in the room. You never felt alone. Still, nothing bad ever happened. So, the room sat empty. Then.. well.. I started using it for an office. This seemed to piss something off. There is no other way to explain it... something wanted me out of that room. We started hearing a baby cry when the house was still. Cold breezes and whispering we could not really understand. Lights turning off and on of their own accord. Still, we were cool with it, nothing bad.. just a minor haunting. then.. one night...

Shit hit the fan.

I was getting ready to go to the store for some munchies and smokes. The stairway from the upper level ended right at the front door with a window in between. This is also where we had a coat rack. I was standing there putting my coat on and thought "How odd, it's completely dark upstairs" There was a street light that should have been shining in an upstairs window and illuminating the stairway. There was also a smell of putrid meat. I assumed that  when the boys had taken out the trash they had put the container right under the window. When I got to the car I noticed that I was wrong in that assumption and made a mental note to find what ever it was that was causing the smell.

When I got back from my store run, the whole family was huddled on the couch with looks of abject terror on their faces. I realized I could see my breath and the stench was so powerful I was gagging. I moved to my family and the stench and cold went away. It seemed to be centered at the base of the stairs. My wife looked at me and said “There is something on the stairs.” I gathered up my boys and took them out the back door and took them to a friend’s house. On the way my wife and son explained what had happened after I left. My son was going to go upstairs to get a blanket, when he got the bottom of the stairs he commented on the stench and how cold it was. When my wife saw his breath she asked him to move away from that area. As he walked away.. something grabbed at him. Kim said it looked like an really old persons hand.. pale and bony with long finger nails. She gathered up the boys and sat them on the couch and grabbed a base ball bat thinking someone had broken in… As she neared the stairway.. the hand came out of the dark again… motioning for her to come to it. She decided that was bad and went back to sit with the boys and await my return.

So, I called my best friend. He’s ½ Navaho and spent years on a reservation learning “the old ways”. He’s, for lack of a better term, a shaman. He came over the next day and performed a ritual on the house to drive out the spirit/s. it seemed to work. We never had another problem and a lot of the little odd things that had always happened in the house stopped.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yikes, Mark!

I've now decided to just be grateful that whatever is my house merely hocked a lugie.

[Steven]

I guess that it only made you stronger in your faith.

I can't watch anything about exorcism. It literally causes anxiety for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

it does.

but I've paid my prices to get there.

I do not know why God allows some of us to experience certain things.

I do not beleive that it made me stronger, or even made my faith stronger, it has however, opened up my eyes, wich I am thankful for.

this is a touchy subject for me - because it has touched me personally.

and i feel , that its very easy to be nonchalant about things that have never truly threatened you, or never caused you harm. For example many people beleive that evil is relative. But I venture that those same people would see things differently - if they have seen what I have seen.

Kelly....your not wrong about what your instinct is telling you.

[Brenda Starrr]

All I know is that I have definitely seen some things in my life. Very weird, creepy things. I know that these things exist. However, the worst thing that has happened to me was "something" that told my 3 friends and I to "Go away. Leave me alone" after leaving a tape player on record and leaving for over 3 hours, back when I was a teen. I assure you, that house was haunted.

I think my present house is, as well.

[Onyx]

that is too weird Dark. :blink  :fear

I can only say and as much as I hate to even type it, say it, cause I feel like there is a presence over me and if I say it or type it, it might know my fears and take advantage of that, that I do feel a presence.  All the time....well most of the time.  I don't know if it just an over active imagination or if there is something.  I will try to describe it as best I can.

I feel overwhelming fear.  Like I just want to hide under the blanket and not open my eyes.  I feel it mostly when I am alone.  It is such an intense fear that I will go out of the room as fast as I can wherever I am at the moment I feel it. 

Is there a false sense of GOD?  I feel like GOD is present all the time, but that's not a bad feeling.  The bad feeling comes and when it comes it is so frightening. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know that feeling well. You described it very well. It has left me now though, and I believe I have figured out why. (I'm oversimplifying here and it may or may not apply to you, but it struck me as I read it how good it feels to not have that sense of impending doom hanging over me).

I've come to the conclusion that it stems from some sense of guilt or feeling of not being good enough, not doing things perfectly or coming up to the impossibly high standards I was setting for myself, as if I were failing at every single thing every day.

Where this stupid perfectionism came from I don't know. Maybe my mom's OCD and her own perfectionism got into my head, but I think the turning point for me came when a couple of acquaintances were killed in accidents and I realized that no matter how perfectly I do things, no matter how much I worry and obsess about every little thing, I'm still going to be a pile of bones one day. It was as if I was looking at myself from the outside and realized I was treating myself horribly. I would never follow a friend around all day and insult them and tell them "you could have done that better" or tell them they are a failure for forgetting this or that.

I realized that nearly ALL the things I had worried about in my life didn't happen, and the things that did happen weren't nearly as bad as I thought. The worst things to ever happen to me I didn't even worry about because they hit out of the blue.

ack... I'm fighting a headache and not expressing this very well.

I think I was actually being haunted by my own thoughts and way of thinking.

[Onyx]

I lived in a house in Mt. Pleasant for about 3 years. For the first year... things were fine. Odd things happened but nothing too.. Well... disturbing. There was a small room upstairs. We didn’t use it for that first year for anything. It sat empty except for a bed that no one could/would sleep in. We did try to get the kids to sleep in there, even tried using for a guest room. No one would stay in the room. You never felt alone. Still, nothing bad ever happened. So, the room sat empty. Then.. well.. I started using it for an office. This seemed to piss something off. There is no other way to explain it... something wanted me out of that room. We started hearing a baby cry when the house was still. Cold breezes and whispering we could not really understand. Lights turning off and on of their own accord. Still, we were cool with it, nothing bad.. just a minor haunting. then.. one night...

Shit hit the fan.

I was getting ready to go to the store for some munchies and smokes. The stairway from the upper level ended right at the front door with a window in between. This is also where we had a coat rack. I was standing there putting my coat on and thought "How odd, it's completely dark upstairs" There was a street light that should have been shining in an upstairs window and illuminating the stairway. There was also a smell of putrid meat. I assumed that  when the boys had taken out the trash they had put the container right under the window. When I got to the car I noticed that I was wrong in that assumption and made a mental note to find what ever it was that was causing the smell.

When I got back from my store run, the whole family was huddled on the couch with looks of abject terror on their faces. I realized I could see my breath and the stench was so powerful I was gagging. I moved to my family and the stench and cold went away. It seemed to be centered at the base of the stairs. My wife looked at me and said “There is something on the stairs.” I gathered up my boys and took them out the back door and took them to a friend’s house. On the way my wife and son explained what had happened after I left. My son was going to go upstairs to get a blanket, when he got the bottom of the stairs he commented on the stench and how cold it was. When my wife saw his breath she asked him to move away from that area. As he walked away.. something grabbed at him. Kim said it looked like an really old persons hand.. pale and bony with long finger nails. She gathered up the boys and sat them on the couch and grabbed a base ball bat thinking someone had broken in… As she neared the stairway.. the hand came out of the dark again… motioning for her to come to it. She decided that was bad and went back to sit with the boys and await my return.

So, I called my best friend. He’s ½ Navaho and spent years on a reservation learning “the old ways”. He’s, for lack of a better term, a shaman. He came over the next day and performed a ritual on the house to drive out the spirit/s. it seemed to work. We never had another problem and a lot of the little odd things that had always happened in the house stopped.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very interesting to read. I've never experienced anything like that, but for some reason I really enjoy reading accounts like that.

(Though I'm sure it would be quite unnerving to experience firsthand).

[TygerLili]

When I was a kid, I really believed in ghosts, spirits, demons, etc., even though my parents and most of the people around me told me those things did not exist. As I got older, I became more skeptical, having never seen anything to actually convince me that spirits do exist. Now, many of my friends believe in spirits and have stories to tell about their paranormal experiences, but I have to say that I just don't believe in any of it anymore. I have never experienced anything even remotely paranormal that I could not find another explanation for. It's strange, I don't think my friends are lying or halucinating, but I simply can not believe they actually experienced what they think they did either. Maybe someday I'll be proven wrong, but I doubt it.

As for the movie...I thought it was quite well done, but I did not find it remotely scary, nor did I find it to be conclusive evidence of the existence of demons and posession. I watched this movie by myself, alone in my house in the middle of the night, expecting when I rented it to be too creeped-out to sleep afterward, but I was surprised by how little it affected me.